Posts Tagged ‘darkness’

Upon further review, judges have amended the egg count total for Tuesday. Yesterday, I reported that Cyndie found six eggs. Last night she updated the count.

Turns out, Jackie had collected 2 eggs herself that day. The total has increased to 8!

So, there.

With all the news frantically shouting about the hurricane bearing down on the US east coast, those of us in the middle of the continent are enjoying very summer-like conditions. My drive home yesterday brought me through fields that are changing from the deep green of summer to hues of yellow and gold.

Navigating my way around the house in the mornings before work has returned to the dark ages, and the hour of closing the chicken coop at night has moved up to around 7:30 p.m., about an hour and a half earlier than just a short while ago.

Last night, a pack of coyotes whooped it up somewhere within hearing distance of our windows. It sounded very similar to the group yelping we heard the first year we moved here, after which we discovered the carcass of the 8-point buck in our woods.

The change of seasons makes life feel more adventurous. It’s adventure that I greatly prefer, compared to an ominous threat of once-in-a-lifetime, climate-change-amplified hurricanes looming large.

Counting my blessings while I have the luxury, and sending love to those facing the challenges of preparations for evacuations, wind damage, and flooding.

Darkness is here. I leave for work in the mornings now with the surroundings in total darkness. It makes for a drastically different drive from the mornings when painted skies of dawn filled my view over the summer. Before long this darkness will begin to feel completely normal, but for now I am very aware of the difference.

The chilly temperatures have me switching back to long sleeve shirts. That means the onset of the perpetual battle to avoid soaking the cuffs when I wash my hands after coming in from working outside. I’m considering making a couple of little “cones-of-shame” like the ones dogs sometimes have to wear, which I can slip over my hands to protect my long sleeves from getting wet when I wash.

Our home is under siege of the dreaded Asian lady beetle. I have gained a heightened sense of paranoia over my ever-present cup of ice water, ever since the time one of the nasty buggers made its way into my drink and I crunched it with my teeth. Even though I have a cover to protect the contents, I feel no sense of confidence that there won’t be a chance one of the invaders has made its way into the drink when I didn’t notice.

Cyndie and I have decided to order some additional loads of sand and gravel to have on hand before the snow flies. The ground is dry enough now that damage from the heavy dump truck will be much less than if we wait until spring, but I still fret over the impact that truck makes. We decided not to have him drive into the paddocks, but that leaves us with the challenge of choosing a spot where the loads can be dumped, and figuring out a way to spread the load out to the areas where we ultimately want it.

We also face the inevitable further abuse to the crumbling surface of our ailing asphalt driveway that the truck will dish out. We’ve given up on trying to repair the existing damage, but that doesn’t mean we welcome the increased distortion by the weight of a fully loaded dump truck. We want the sand and gravel, we just don’t want the abuse caused when it is delivered.

But I’m not whining. Really. Just venting a little bit. And it feels much better having done so.

Now I can get back to enjoying the splendor of a fall that is glowing all around our house this year. It is putting on quite a show!

At our latitude, the steady transition from the extra daylight hours of summer, to the lengthened hours of darkness in winter, really begins to have an impact during the month after the autumnal equinox. That doesn’t take anything away from the initial anxiety that strikes when the trend begins to become apparent in the latter part of the summer. They are just different stages of the same phenomenon.

We tend to whine and moan when we notice the sun setting earlier and earlier, but day-to-day, the change is negligible. Early in the season, the impact on evening activity is minimal. Then all of a sudden, there comes a point when it seems like it is dark as night outside, and preparations for dinner haven’t even been started.

That happened to me yesterday, and I noticed a sensation of acceptance wash over me. Long hours of darkness are the way it is going to be for the next 5-months. Deal with it.

Somehow, I seem to find a way. Similar to how I now find myself automatically picking out a long-sleeved shirt every morning and accept it as routine, long hours of darkness becomes just the way it is for a while. It becomes normal.